Posted by
Young Republican on Monday, June 09, 2008 2:04:26 PM
We as Americans ought to be ashamed by our electoral system. Not for the candidates it produces but rather the time it waste. In a world where time is at a constant premium we happily allow it to be wasted for the glitz and glamour of the seemingly never-ending Presidential campaign. No one enjoys a political contest more than me, but the continual focus in our national dialogue of a year long event that all comes down to one day is ridiculous.
I don't blame the candidates themselves but rather the two major parties, which have lost all control of their own internal organizations to the point where it looked for a moment that the Presidential Race of 2008 was going to start in the year 2007 in the cold December Iowa air. Thankfully we spared that fiasco only to have it replaced by a January 3rd date that would not end, (nor should it every state deserves an equal say), until June 3rd. A 5-month primary. In the most developed country in the world, Zimbabwe held multiple primary elections and two presidential votes in half this time and still had time for mass voter fraud and national turmoil.
Of course the media is also to blame as well. While a presidential race would certainly be the lead story it has become the only story in the political world as if America had no more flaws that needed to be fixed. With this intense focus every development in the race, is then analyze to the degree of which we usually reserved for actual election returns. And pundits who seem barely able to hold their own when discussing politics become de facto psychiatrists trying to prey into the mind of Hillary Clinton.
A hobby of mine is to collect obituaries. I enjoy it for multiple reasons, which I’ll disclose at another time, but we all know people who will pass from now until November. Some will die from old age, disease, or be taken in tragedy but all will have gone not being helped by our government, which is frozen until a new President is sworn in. What's so sad about this isn't the actual truth but rather how complacent we have become. We've allowed ourselves to become focused on an inflated yet important event and forgotten all the issues that made us love politics to begin with. For myself I cannot wait for this contest to be over with regardless of the winner. We have a country to run, and I'm running out of time.